In addition, says Jones, information is simply lost because of the nature of the hand-offs between phases. "The design work gets ‘dumbed down' over a set of documents, and handed out to the marketplace for bidding, and there's a big drop off as that information becomes extracted and handed off," Jones explains. "Then a whole new set of people work very hard to understand that project as they're bidding it out. Yet only a small subset of those actually end up working on it, and by the time it gets turned over to the people who have to build it in the field, the trade contractors, the fabricators, the suppliers, and the contractors who put it together, there's another big drop off.  That group then builds an enormous amount of valuable information about every small detail of that building as they actually put it together. But then a huge amount of that drops off again when it gets handed over in a simple set of as-builts and some operations manuals to an owner."

The resulting inefficiencies are significant. Of all industries, construction is the only one to have actually experienced decreased productivity since 1964. Total waste is estimated at as much as 30 percent, according to Economist magazine, and absence of software integration and interoperability costs companies in the construction sector up to $15.8 billion per year, as shown in a study by the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST).

 

Of all industries, construction is the only one to show decreased productivity since 1964, as seen in this U.S. Department of Commerce chart. Total waste is estimated at as much as 30 percent, according to Economist magazine.

 

 

Preventing Data Loss and Duplication

IPD significantly prevents much of the loss of information that occurs from phase to phase. According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), "Integrated project delivery leverages early contributions of knowledge and expertise through the utilization of new technologies, allowing all team members to better realize their highest potentials while expanding the value they provide throughout the project life cycle."

Seizing on this valuable opportunity, the AIA's Contract Documents Committee and the AIA California Council jointly developed the paper, Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide, to assist owners, designers and builders to move toward integrated models and improved design, construction, and operations processes. The guide identifies the characteristics of IPD and offers guidance on how to utilize IPD methods to improve design, construction and operations processes. Among the key topics addressed by the AIA study are:

• Teams
• Processes
• Risk and liability
• Compensation and reward
• Communication and technology
• Agreements and contracts

 

 

 

In terms of suitable technology, the AIA report counsels that technologies should be "specified at project initiation to maximize functionality, generality and interoperability." The issue of "interoperable data exchanges based on disciplined and transparent data structures are essential to support IPD," says the report.

While the potential gains of efficiency of using IPD tools in the construction market are among the highest possible, integrated project delivery is benefiting much more than the AEC world. For example, its use for emergency operations centers (EOCs) has been shown to improve critical decision-making in the high-pressure, constrained environments of natural and human-made disasters. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, employed a collaboration software program as well as a server and software for web-based work applications to manage its EOC. The resulting robust collaboration environment was found to enhance many measures of effectiveness during an emergency situation.